St. Mary's received a $500K grant.

Christmas came early for the handful of parishioners of St. Mary's in the Mountains Catholic Church Friday as a $500,000 federal grant was announced to help church officials restore the Virginia City landmark.

Total restoration for the structure, originally built in 1869, is estimated at $1.9 million church officials said Sunday.

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Welcome! You are among the first visitors to St. Mary's in the Mountains new website.

Please visit us often as we will endeavor to keep you updated about our progress and enable you to experience the unique history of a city, a state and a church whose parentage were the Civil War and the richest silver vein ever uncovered anywhere on any continent in history.

Early in the New Year we expect to extend to you opportunities to visit this fabulous city, stay overnight in artistically ambient historical venues and experience "the way it was" while this great country was still being formed.

Our heartfelt thanks to the many volunteers that have uncovered and displayed the 500 plus precious and semi-precious antiques, paintings and artifacts that exemplify one of the most exciting periods in American History.

Whether you enjoy a virtual tour of this spiritual center of mining culture or visit us in person, you are very welcome and we appreciate your visit.

Father Joe Anthony

Comstock Prayer

If when we've done with earthly strife
There be a Paradise or Sheol
Or any other named abode
Which we may gain through love or pity,
Grant me a heavenly Comstock Lode
A spiritual Virginia City

Joseph T. Goodman Editor,
Territorial Enterprise
Virginia City 1861-1874

Ode to the Irish Miner

There's a mountain in Nevada
Where the Shamrocks cannot grow
Where the Leprechauns hid their treasure Three thousand feet below
But O'Reilly and McLaughlin
With a bit of Irish Luck
and "Old Virginia" Finney Stumbled in the muck They found the buried treasure
and in Eire the tale was told
and a thousand eager Irishmen
arrived to dig for gold
The West has many heroes
Courageous, Brave and Grand
But the great Bonanza Kings All came from Ireland
And back among the Shamrock The Leprechauns still say
That they up and lost thier treasure on a mountain far way.

Courtesy: Irish Miner at the Delta Gift Shop